Wine and Dine

This may be the best part of interview season: The wooing. Knowing that they want you. That is a position we haven't been in for a while! So long in fact, I am not sure it has ever happened.

Potential employers make the travel arrangements and pay for them. Just show up. That would be enough, but they also book nice hotels and eat at fancy restaurants. My husband owes me big time. When is someone going to make my travel arrangements and pay for them, and make them fancy? Yes, I am jealous.

I should note that I didn't accompany my husband on his interview. I could have. Logistically it didn't work. We have kids. Kids have school. I know, they only would have missed two days. Had the interview been in a city I wasn't already intimately knowledgeable of, I would have considered making the necessary arrangements to be there. But there wasn't anything to see or do that I haven't already seen and done. In the end it wasn't worth the hassle. And by hassle I mean flying a babysitter out for a weekend. We aren't made of money.

To share some of the experience with me as I was sitting in my pajamas with a sink full of dishes he sent me photos of his hotel room, a grand 5 star hotel that is a landmark in the area. I have driven up to the hotel, but never stayed there! And my husband had two nights there, alone. I am not keeping score.

Then he tells me about the restaurant they went to for lunch. It was so nice, I'd never even heard of it. Throughout the entire process he was sending me texts and pictures. He probably knew I was nervous for him and that was his way of keeping me from pulling my hair out, or biting my nails.

And the icing on the cake, (or rather salt in my wound) he got to spend the next day roaming the city. To give me an idea of how well he thought the interview went, he sent me pictures of what he was shopping for. Can you say sport cars that cost more than our current annual salary, maybe twice as much. He must be very confident.

I don't blame him. The job is a perfect fit. He is a hometown boy. He shares authorship on a paper with the other surgeon, they were fellowship trained at the same location, and was basically told before he came that he was THE ONE.

I am not so secretly making my list of things I want when we can afford to pay for them. First on the list is a flight out of town for 1, 2 nights at a fancy hotel, room service and a day spa. I love my family, but mama needs some time alone occasionally. A mini vacation would certainly suffice.

And after the stress of this last week I could certainly use one.